By Suzanne Bowdey

While it isn’t what every American wanted, the election did deliver something every American needed: clarity. The results that handed Donald Trump his second term supplied exactly what this weary and fractured country had to have to move forward — an unambiguous winner. A straightforward path. A fresh chance to be the nation its people, and the world, deserve. But none of that will matter, some are pointing out, if we don’t seize the reprieve God has granted.

“We can’t squander this moment,” former Congressman Jody Hice said emotionally. “Underneath all of this, God is giving America a window of mercy. This has to be a moment that the body of Christ responds with gratitude and repentance. We cannot throw away this time of grace that God has given us.” Yes, there were tremendous victories that took place, he acknowledged, “but may we respond humbly and steward this moment appropriately going forward — and in greater reliance upon Him.”

What happened Tuesday was incredibly significant, he underscored. “It does restore hope in the American people that they realize the direction our country was going — and they rejected it. They don’t want the woke policies. They don’t want all this misunderstanding of gender and of loss of parental rights and a horrible economy and an open border and on and on and on. … [T]hey want more common-sense government. They want authentic leadership around the world, as well as right here in our own country. And I believe that message came through loud and clear.”

But to those conservatives who think they can just sit back and coast for four years now that Republicans have a firm grip on key levers of power, think again. “Regardless of how this election goes,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins wanted people to know, “our work has just begun.” We shouldn’t think that Trump’s election means game over in the political arena, FRC’s Owen Strachan insisted. “No, it means game on.”

Obviously, there’s enormous relief at this opportunity to close our borders, restore biological sanity, make life affordable again, and become a respected voice on the global stage — and that’s worth celebrating. But if the disappointments of the GOP platform are any indication, there will be some uncomfortable times ahead. And those times must be met with our unbendable conviction that biblical principles matter — regardless of their political expedience.

“Let me tell you something … we can learn from [Democrats],” Princeton Professor Robert George explained. “Something I admire about them [is] they do not let their politicians deviate. They do not let their politicians adopt a view for the purposes of [winning an election]. They do not accept the argument that, ‘Well, our view is now in a minority and it’s electorally dangerous for us to come out in favor of that view.’ … The Left understands that that doesn’t work in the long run to the advantage of the causes that they believe in.”

Whatever the narrative may be about this election — whether the GOP’s disconcerting step back from the life issue helped or hurt — it’s the Christians’ job to cut through that noise to the truth. And frankly, if the church had engaged from a point of moral clarity sooner, we might not have gotten to the point where fundamental values like this one are suddenly negotiable. The bottom line is, we can’t vote and walk away. “Part of being a disciple,” Pastor Jack Hibbs wanted people to know, “is getting involved in this remarkable republic that the Lord has given us.”

We aren’t Minutemen like they had in the Revolutionary War, Perkins stressed. “They would drop their pitchforks, grab their rifles, and they would run to the battle. And then they would go back home, and they would pick up their pitchforks. You know, I always thought, ‘Well, we just kind of respond, and we take a pro-life stand, and then it’s over and we go back to our life as it was before.’”

But that’s not our calling as Christians, he insisted. “This is our life. This is what Ephesians 6 talks about [when it explains] the battle that we’re in and [urges us] to continue to stand. So the battle is never done this side of heaven. We have to continue to perpetually stand for the truth.”

The good news is that there’s unbelievable momentum right now to do exactly that. If the sea of red from Tuesday is any indication, Americans are energized as never before to put this country back on the right track. As FRC’s Mary Szoch said after voters knocked off three radical pro-abortion ballot initiatives, this is the opening believers have been waiting for. On Tuesday, “Americans … re-elected the most pro-life president in the history of America,” she emphasized. “Now is the time for us to work together to promote strong, faith-filled marriages, strengthen families, and create a society that values every single person from the moment they come into existence. The opportunity to build a culture of life in America is great, and we cannot waste it.”

Pro-lifers saw what could be accomplished when they pushed back on Trump’s reluctance to challenge the Left’s abortion agenda in Florida: he listened. Where would the amendment be today if conservatives hadn’t held the former president accountable? Fortunately, we’ll never know. 

We also need to remember, Hibbs said on Pray Vote Stand: Decision 2024, “The church needs a revival. We will still wake up tomorrow [knowing that the church needs to turn] back to Scripture — and pulpits … [need to address] through the Scripture the issues that shape our congregants and their life, their worldview. And so, we need a revival. We pray that this election is a little part of that, but the bottom line is the answer is really in God’s people stepping up. And that’s what we hope we see tonight, is God’s people getting involved.”

Another thing Christians need to realize, former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said, is that “we have a lot to be grateful for.” The Trump campaign is in a “good place,” she acknowledged, “[but that’s] in the natural. I felt like the Lord was saying to me early on in this campaign that this [race] won’t be won in the natural, it will be won in the supernatural. And I truly believe that we need to just keep leaning in [with] prayer and what we’re [doing]. Where Scripture has taken me this week is [to Exodus] where Moses is standing when the Israelites are battling with the Amalekites — and then Hur and Aaron are holding up Moses’s arms — all while Joshua was on the field at the battle. And so it’s both: it’s prayer, and it’s action.”

When the church does both, she explained, “then we see victory.” “… But we can never, ever take it for granted.” The reality is, Michele pointed out, “Four years is going to go fast. And again, we only have two years until the next midterm, so … we’ve got to get to work. … It’s like there was a party and the furniture is all broken and the drapes are torn down from the windows, and we’ve got to get America’s house back in order fast and do what the American public believes that Donald Trump and a Republican Senate and a Republican House can do.”

That takes work, it takes commitment, and it takes an army of men and women determined to pay the price to speak up — and stand up. Whatever happens from here, Tony urged, “Election 2024 must not be the finish line for Christians in America; I pray it is a starting point. It’s time for the church to arise. Our hurting nation needs a revival that only God can provide.”

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.